


Shots In Time

by GrizzBe



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, One Shot, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8612503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrizzBe/pseuds/GrizzBe
Summary: A series of McTracer one-shots!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a prompt you'd like me to write up, feel free to leave a review with your suggestion!

The Cowboy sat at his favorite bar and gave his glass of whiskey deep consideration. The past couple days had been particularly rough, his Blackwatch team having had a rough go of things in Durango chasing ghosts. Needless to say, McCree was going to enjoy this well-deserved downtime, sitting on his favorite stool and enjoying his wordless camaraderie with his favorite bartender.

Midway through his second sip, McCree was buffeted by a gust of wind as Tracer suddenly appeared on the stool to his right. Jesse choked down his whiskey before turning to address the Pilot. Finishing his sip turned out to be a good idea because if he hadn’t, the look on Lena’s face would’ve caused him to spit it out. On the stool next to him, the spritely Brit sat with the cheesiest grin and an eyebrow at an impossibly high arch.

“Ello, love, got any dates? No? How about a rais… Wait, got any raisins? No... Shoot!” Lena’s confident demeanor quickly faded, along with any color in her cheeks. She raised her hands, “Hold on a second, forget I said anything!”

With that, Lena blinked away and left McCree just as confused as he was when she had started. The Cowboy looked around for a second, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted his glass to his lips before another gust of wind hit him. McCree quickly choked down more of his whiskey than he was planning, trying hard not to lose any of it on the bar. Lena spun around on the stool to his left this time and Jesse turned to her as he was wiping off the bit of his drink that hadn’t made it into his mouth.

“There appears to be a problem with my mobile,” said the typically confident Overwatch operative. “It’s missing… your number… in... it.” The smile that started to grow on Jesse’s face seemed to only further tie Lena’s tongue.

Jesse’s smile turned into a toothy grin and Lena covered her eyes in her hands.

“No, no, no, this is awful,” she said, looking up when Jesse began to chuckle.

“No, stop that,” Lena tried to cover Jesse’s mouth, only making him laugh harder. “I’m being smooth right now! Don’t laugh!”

Lena vanished again, leaving the Cowboy to finish laughing. After a moment, Jesse finished the rest of his whiskey and gave the barman a look, who simply nodded in the direction of a swinging door at the back of the bar. McCree gave the man a small salute, to which he merely bowed his head a little and continued to polish the bar.

Jessey moseyed to the swinging doors and peered around the corner to find Lena pacing back and forth, going over a small stack of notecards.

“‘Is that a mirror in your pants? Because I can see myself in them,’” whispered Tracer to herself, reading from a note card. “No, ya tosser, you want to go on a date with this man, not get in his trousers!”

McCree walked into the hallway, putting his shoulder on the wall and trying his hardest to suppress the shit-eating grin that he was sure was on his face before Lena turned around.

“‘Ello, love, you look a lot like my next boy..frei-,’” Lena froze as she turned around, seeing Jesse standing there with a massive shit-eating grin on his face. “How long have you been standing there?!”

“Long enough to know you have no interest in getting in my jeans,” said the Cowboy.

“Oh bollocks, this is a disaster,” said Lena, burying her face in her hands. “I had this big plan to ask you to dinner and now it’s all gone pear-shaped and you think I’m some bloody loon and you’ll never talk to me again.”

Jesse couldn’t help but laugh again, which only appeared to drive the Pilot’s face deeper into her hands. The Cowboy closed the distance with the Pilot and gently wrapped her in his arms, the smaller Brit burying her face into his shirt. Jesse couldn’t help but feel that maybe this wasn’t the worst day ever as he lightly rested his chin on top of Lena’s messy hair.

“Now Miss Oxton, were you trying to flirt with me?”

“Oh, bugger off,” came Lena’s muffled reply, her face still hiding in his chest. As embarrassed as she must’ve been, she still managed to chuckle in spite of it all.

“Well, if you were trying to flirt with me, I think I’d want you to know how lucky I’d feel that the cutest girl this side of the Mississip had decided to give me the time of day.”

“The Mississippi River is thousands of miles away, Jesse,” said Lena, looking up at McCree’s face with an eyebrow cocked.

“My thoughts exactly, Darlin,” replied Jesse, his toothy grin shining down at her.

Lena laughed a bit and slapped Jesse’s shoulder, “That has got to be the worst chat up line I’ve ever heard.”

“The worst?” it was Jesse’s turn to cock an eyebrow at the Brit, but his smile persisted.

“Alright, that’s enough!” insisted Lena, giving Jesse another playful slap on his chest.

“Ms. Lena Oxton, would you like to go to dinner sometime?”

“Oh God yes! Can we please just move out from this bloody hallway?” implored Lena, laughing now.

“How ‘bout a drink first?”

“That. Sounds. Top.”

Lena grabbed McCree’s arm and dragged the Cowboy out of the hallway back towards the bar, Jesse grinning ear to ear behind her.

“Sir, I would like a gin and tonic and my date here will take your finest whiskey…” Lena looked expectantly at Jesse.

“Uhhh, on the rocks, Marc.”

Lena gave Jesse and the barman a definitive nod and moved to a small booth near the bar, Jesse soon joining her. Marc, ever the professional, turned around to prep the drinks. Even though the barkeeper was typically stone-faced, part of the reason Jesse liked him so much, Jesse could have sworn he saw a smile creep across his lips as he pulled down the bottle of gin.

Jesse couldn’t help but smile himself, what had started out as a night meant to forget the past week had turned into a night full of promise. Cheesy or not, he hadn’t been lying when he had used his “Mississippi” line, he had just expected to be the one to make the first move. The Cowboy couldn’t lie, though, he was pretty happy he wasn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

_Many thanks go to Page-Mistress on FanFiction for the prompt! Not going to lie, this was the epilogue I had planned for_ A Mid-Fall’s Reprieve _before I cut it so I’m happy that I get to come back to it! If you have a prompt that you’d like me to give a look, feel free to leave a review or comment! Thanks for reading, y’all!_

* * *

 

The Overwatch operative stood on the platform in Seville, trying her hardest not to show how restless she was and failing pretty spectacularly. She hadn’t seen him since the base in Switzerland had blown to kingdom come and the UN shut down all of their operations. Bloody hell, she hadn’t even _spoken_ to him since then.

By all rights, she should be furious. She hadn’t exactly been lying low trying not to be found, unlike _him_. The least he could’ve done was sent her a message! They had a system for getting ahold of each other while they were out on missions! It certainly wasn’t fool-proof but it was _something_. She had come back from many of her jaunts and impromptu operations hoping to find a note that he was at least _alive_ but to no avail.

That was, until the news reports started rolling in, “ _Dangerous Ex-Overwatch Operative Wreaks Havoc On Train,_ ” “ _Bounty Placed On The Head Of Ex-Blackwatch Agent_ ,” “ _Outlaw Jesse McCree Wanted For Attempted Assassination Of Ambassador_.” Lena smiled at the thought of the last one, she could only imagine what Jesse had gone through to keep the ambassador safe and the grin he must’ve had when he heard the news anchors refer to him as an “ _outlaw”_.

She had never worried about the Cowboy returning to his outlaw ways, she had come to know exactly what kind of man Jesse is while they were together during what turned out to be the waning days of Overwatch. If McCree was diving headfirst into danger, she knew he was doing it for good reasons. And if he was doing it by himself, without backup, well… He _could_ be a right proper idiot sometimes.

Lena caught her foot tapping on the floor and put some effort into stopping before blinking to the _Arrivals_ board to make sure that there weren’t any delays for what felt like the 10th time. It’s on time. Of course it’s on time. It’s been on time every time she’s checked the board since she got here. She was having a hard time being patient now that she was so close to the moment she had been waiting for since she had gotten the recall from her best friend.

Jesse had been one of the first to respond to Winston’s recall but was “in the middle of something,” or so the short, cryptic message that he had managed to send said. That had been two weeks ago and it didn’t escape her notice that his last message a few days ago had coincided with a “large, _unexplainable_ explosion off the Volga River.”

That message. It was short, typical of the Cowboy, telling them he’d be coming into Seville by train in three days time. The end, though, had sent her heart thrumming like a mockingbird. Four words, “Could you send Lena?” Winston had had a laugh at that, but the smile on his face when he relayed it to her betrayed just how genuinely happy the big gorilla had been for her.

A gentle voice came over the intercom, informing everyone on the platform that the 8:10 from Madrid was coming into the station and Lena snapped out of her thoughts. She looked down the rail and saw the bullet train coming to a stop. The agent found it impossible to stop herself as she quickly blinked around the train, looking for the Cowboy’s telltale hat. She found it near the back car, covering his face with his messy hair pressed against the window.

Lena moved over to the pillar nearest the door Jesse was moving for and tried her hardest to look cool. He stepped off the train carrying a duffle bag, looked around and Lena couldn’t help herself. In a blink, she had closed the distance between the two of them and thrown herself into Jesse, who dropped his bag to ensure the two of them didn’t go flying to the floor.

Before the Cowboy could say a word, Lena’s lips were on his, humming with pleasure. She could feel the sun on his skin as his arms wrapped around her and she melted into them. The two stayed there for what felt simultaneously like an eternity and a blink of an eye before Lena eventually unwrapped her legs and returned to the platform.

“That’s for not dying,” said Lena, a smile on her lips that McCree quickly matched.

Jesse started to talk when Tracer’s open palm made a lightning strike against his cheek.

“And _THAT_ is for not contacting me this whole time, ya bloody tosser!” Lena was trying her hardest to act mad but she couldn’t suppress the happiness that she felt and the grin shining on McCree’s face as he rubbed his cheek didn’t help matters.

“Listen, Lena, Talon scooped up most of my men when Blackwatch got dismantled and they took my playbook with ‘em.” The Cowboy’s grin had faded as his eyes had set into a serious gaze. “As long as they were out there, I had to be huntin' 'em and I wasn’t gonna put you in danger on accounta my problems. If something had happened to you, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.”

Lena said nothing but grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in, kissing him with a hunger that had been building since they had last seen each other. It was McCree’s turn to hum with pleasure, he had apparently been missing her lips as much as she had missed his. After a moment, Lena stepped back and grasped Jesse’s hands in hers, which he gave a gentle squeeze.

“That’s all well and good, Cowboy, but if you think you’re going to run any more missions without me, you’re a complete nutter.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, Darlin,” said Jesse. “Like hell I’d think about leaving you again.”

This earned McCree a flurry of kisses before he grabbed his bag and the two headed out of the station, hand in hand. Lena’s head rested on McCree’s shoulder and she smiled softly to herself, the moon was out and street lights left a soft glow on the street for the couple as they walked towards the truck Lena had commandeered from Watchpoint: Gibraltar's motor pool.

“Tell me, Len, is that cafe down the street with those amazing tapas still there?”

“Why, Jesse, I do believe it is,” smiled Lena, the memories of several furloughs spent in Seville with the Cowboy flooding into her mind.

“What say we grab a table on the sidewalk, maybe a bottle of _fine_ Spanish red and have ourselves a candle light dinner?”

“Sounds utterly delightful, love, but Winston is probably expecting us back at base soon.”

“Oh, come on now, I’m sure Winston would understand us coming back tomorrow,” said Jesse, a wicked grin coming over his face.

“ _Tomorrow?_ Someone is pretty sure of themselves,” answered Lena, piquing an eyebrow but matching Jesse’s grin.

“We need to debrief each other on what all we’ve been up to is all I’m talking about, missy,” said Jesse. “I’m not too sure _what_ you’re getting at.”

“ _Sure_ , Cowboy,” said Lena, letting out a laugh. “Come on, now, let’s go grab a bite to eat.”

Jesse put his bag in the truck and the two started walking towards the cafe. They _did_ have a lot to catch up on and Winston would _certainly_ understand.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sorry this has taken a little longer than normal! I’ve started working on my next fic and hopefully the first chapter of_ that _will be out pretty soon! Anyways, many thanks go out to Maxadillo on FanFiction for the prompt! It was fun to listen to the song and kind of have the story flow out of that. Keep up the prompts, y’all! I’m really enjoying this!_

* * *

 

The Cowboy appraised the big pile of potatoes in front of him and grinned. Some may have called the prank fool-hardy, some would probably say it was way too much work for the payoff, but as far as McCree was concerned, seeing Gabe’s face _literally_ covered in pie was entirely worth it. Sneaking a blackberry cobbler into the training exercise hadn’t been easy, making sure Torbjörn and Reinhart didn’t eat it _really_ hadn’t been easy, sneaking up on Gabriel with the pie like he was in some cartoon had been the hardest part, but he had pulled it off.

Gabe had angrily told him that if he enjoyed sneaking things out of the mess hall, it was only fair that he should help with dinner that evening and sent him packing to peel potatoes. McCree shook his head and laughed at how old school the commander of Blackwatch could be as he inspected the first spud. He had a few hours before the cooks needed everything ready for the boilers but, even then, it was going to be close.

“Well, best to get to work,” said Jesse, sitting on a stool and readying the peeler.

As the “peeled” pile slowly started building, the monotony of the work began to take its toll on McCree. The Cowboy slowly started to hum a tune, one that he hadn’t thought of in a long time. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to sing, actually quite the opposite. He had sung quite a bit when he was younger, when he still had a family. After he had lost them and joined the Deadlock Gang, the singing had stopped. It wasn’t that they would’ve attacked him for singing, it was just that singing was something that he did with his parents on late summer nights, not with gangsters around a campfire or at a bar.

The song was an oldie, one that his granddad had taught to his father, who had taught him. The humming slowly turned into singing, his southwestern drawl lazily filling the room.

“ _I got spurs… That Jingle Jangle Jingle…”_

The Cowboy looked up from the potato he was whittling on, had he heard something? After waiting a few moments, Jesse was satisfied that he had only heard the wind and set back to his work.

“ _As I go ridin’… Merrily along,”_ McCree finished the potato off with a flourish and grabbed another one when he heard something again. Was that… A _giggle?_

Jesse got off his stool and walked to the door, peeking out. Nothing. He looked down the hall in both directions one more time before closing the door and slowly walking back towards his chair, keeping an ear out for signs of anything amiss.

Jesse’s eyes shifted back and forth as he took his seat and resumed peeling. It wasn’t long before he was humming the tune again, with the lyrics coming shortly after.

“ _And they sing, ‘Oh ain’t you glad you’re single,’”_ sang the Cowboy.

“Oh, is _that_ what they sing?!” came a mischievous voice from behind him, taking McCree by surprise.

“Shit!” cried Jesse, nearly stumbling out of his stool as he swung around to address the voice.

Lena sat next to the pile of potatoes on the counter with a wide grin, “Well, if _that’s_ the case, maybe I should be _moseying_ back to my quarters? Leave ya to your work?”

Jesse chuckled uneasily, “Well hey there, darlin. How long have ya been there?”

“Long enough to start wondering why I haven’t heard you sing yet, love,” said Lena with a light touch, taking note of how uneasy the typically implacable Cowboy looked and his flushing cheeks. “Just saying, you ever sing like that to me…”

Tracer shivered and gave Jesse a wicked smile, earning her another uneasy laugh but he still didn’t look quite like the Cowboy she knew. He still looked a little off put.

“Love, whatsa matter?” asked Lena, a slight hint of concern coming over her face.

Jesse started rubbing the back of his neck and tried to laugh it off, “It’s nothing darlin, I just… haven’t sung for anybody but myself for awhile, is all.”

“Whatdya mean?”

The conversation was quickly becoming more personal than Jesse had ever really been comfortable with. He and Lena hadn’t even been seeing each other for that long, he would be entirely within his rights to just leave it be and give her some non-answer. When he looked up and saw the concern on her face, though, he found himself speaking, “It’s just… I never felt like I could sing around the Deadlocks. I only ever really sang with my dad and his guitar. When I lost him, I only really sang when I was by myself.”

“Your dad’s guitar, huh?” Lena said, her frown quickly turning into a smile as she stood up, a thought coming to her. “Stay here! I’ll be right back!”

With that, the Pilot blinked away and Jesse found himself alone again, his hands slowly going back to peeling as he waited, wondering what she was up to. A couple minutes later, Tracer reappeared with her trademark smile, holding a ukulele.

“I gave that song of yours a quick listen! This might not be your dad’s guitar, but it’ll have to do!”

And just like that, she started strumming out that old tune that Jesse’s father had plucked from his guitar when he was young. Not long after that, the two were singing a duet. It wasn’t quite what Jesse had grown up with, the ukulele wasn’t exactly his father’s guitar and his British partner, lovely as her voice was, wasn’t exactly Country, but Jesse hadn’t felt more at home in a long time.

The music, not to mention the company, helped make quick work of the rest of his potatoes and the two started walking out of the mess hall towards Lena’s place, the Pilot plucking at her uke and resting her head on Jesse’s shoulder.

“Y’know, we make a good team, Cowboy,” said Lena. “Maybe we should play at the pub sometime?”

Lena laughed and Jesse quickly covered her face with his hat, rolling his eyes and grinning. She quickly pushed the hat back on her head, matching the Cowboy’s smile.

Jesse leaned down and gave the Pilot a kiss, “We should probably practice a bit more first.”

“Maybe _YOU_ should practice a bit more first! I sounded great!”

The two laughed at that and continued walking back to Lena’s quarters. Jesse had managed to smash some pie in his mentor’s face and had gotten to sing again, with Lena to boot. He chalked today up as a pretty good day.


	4. Chapter 4

_So, I wasn’t expecting to write any more of this pairing, it was small before the Xmas comic came out, but apparently, there are still some fans of it out there! Thus, this fic! Thanks to Taxima on AO3 for the prompt! I figure I might as well just couch this right now: the fic isn’t meant to diminish or downplay canon!Tracer’s sexuality at all, it’s just a fic for a rarepair I’ve enjoyed writing for for a while. Also, I’m used to writing fluff, and this is decidedly non-fluffy, so if it sucks, that’s why. Hope y’all like it!_

* * *

 The rain continued to fall, but hardly anyone noticed. The chaos that had erupted so violently mere hours before was still echoing throughout the town as sirens blared to and from the rubble of the Overwatch compound. Lena still didn’t know exactly what had happened, only that everything was going to be different from here on. That, and that she needed to go to the hospital.

Her home and, likely, Overwatch as a whole were gone, a smoking crater was all that was left of either. Some of her closest friends were missing, but here she was, across the street from the hospital, standing in the rain. She had seen at least four ambulances come in since she got here 10 minutes ago but he was already there. Had been out of surgery for at least an hour, she had been told. She would’ve been here sooner, but she had been trying her hardest to help at the base in any way that she could.

Or would she have been? Had she just been volunteering for any odd job to avoid coming here? To put off facing this particular pain? She had to, though. She had to be strong. He would be for her. Lena clenched her fists and darted across the street, hesitating only for a moment at the door before pushing forward.

She was met with more chaos. Disaster had a way of doing that, spreading chaos like a disease. Inside the emergency room, doctors and orderlies shouted over each other, shepherding their patients in and out of doors. Overwatch personnel in various states of injury lined the walls, their groans and coughs providing an undertone of misery to the whole procession.

Through the din of noise and shambling of the injured, Lena spotted her closest friend. Angela stood tall at the far end of the room, directing the chaos like a skilled conductor. The Doctor saw Lena and rattled off a litany of instructions to the nearby doctors before moving to meet her.

“Angela! Where is he? Is he going to be okay? Tell me he’s going to be okay. Tell me ever-” stammered Lena before her friend gently covered her mouth.

“Lena, he’s resting in a room in the east wing. His surgery will leave him exhausted for quite a while,” said Angela, struggling to keep her voice and her face as professional as possible. Jesse was a close friend of hers as well. “You need to prepare yourself, Lena. His injuries were extensive and required major reconstructive surgery; his entire left arm had to be replaced.”

Lena reeled, she had heard that it was bad, but she didn’t know for sure the extent of his injuries. The Pilot fell into a haze, a thousand different scenarios flying in her head on how things could’ve been different and how things might be going forward. Angela stepped aside to give more orders to her doctors before leading Lena past the swinging doors towards his room in the east wing. Before she could get her thoughts in order she found herself standing in front of a door, ‘McCree, Jesse’ written on a display screen with various charts blinking past, none of which looked particularly good.

“Listen, Lena; we’ve done everything we can for him at the moment,” Angela turned Lena around and gave her a serious look, the most serious look her friend had ever given her. “The road in front of him will be much easier with you by his side.”

“I know,” was all Lena could manage to say, her throat coming dangerously close to swelling shut.

“He’s asleep right now and should be for quite some time,” said Angela. “Go in when you’re ready.”

Lena rested her hand on the door’s handle as her friend moved back to the waiting room. Angela was right, of course, Jesse needed her. Now more than ever. And here she was, hesitating at the door. A profound sense of guilt came over her, the man that meant most to her had already lost so much today. When he woke up, not only would he find himself missing an entire arm but his mentor and father-figure as well, not to mention the only place in the world that he considered home laid in ruins and was unlikely ever to come back.

She turned the handle and stepped through the threshold. After the loudness and chaos that seemed to seep into the rest of the hospital, McCree’s dark room felt almost eerily quiet, nothing but the soft beeps and whirring from the multitude of machines that appeared to grow out of him. The soft lights filtering past the curtain on the room’s only window revealed an oxygen mask covering his mouth. Even with the mask, though, there was no hiding the cuts and bruises that covered the rest of his face. The damage probably extended to the rest of his body, lying just underneath his surgical gown and the bed’s blankets as his chest gently rose and fell with each breath.

Lena’s steps toward the bed could only be described as timid. Each step brought a new cut, a new stitch, a new bruise into stark relief before his left arm came into view. She let out a gasp and the tears that she had so valiantly been holding back wrenched themselves from her eyes. She took the seat by the bed and fought herself, trying her hardest to quiet the sobs as they wracked her body, the full gravity of Jesse’s situation coming down on her in its totality all at once.

She lightly took his metal left hand in hers, and hundreds of memories poured through her thoughts - watching a movie nestled into his shoulder, holding his hand during parades, the two of them all smiles under a shower of confetti, her resting her cheek in his palm, with all of its callouses and blisters but still managing warmth and softness.

She sat there and cried silently for what felt like ages, the exhaustion that she had refused to acknowledge slowly seeping into her very bones. The tears stopped coming at some point, and a pained smile came in its place. He was still here and even if his road forward was going to be difficult, she was determined to make it easier. Before long, she fell asleep in the chair, leaned over the bed, holding Jesse’s new hand.

* * *

  _WOOF. So, I felt this one deserved a preface as well as an afterword. It was rough writing this one, y’all. I tried to pull from my own experiences with hospitals, feeling so many different emotions, not all of which I’m proud of, I can only hope I did the scenario justice. I almost want to write a small, extended ending with a much lighter tone. If anyone wants that, I write it up and add a super small chapter._


	5. Chapter 4 and a Half

_ An afterword for the last chapter! Like I mentioned before, the tone of this would’ve been a pretty big shock if it was a part of the actual chapter, so here it is on its own! Hope y’all like it! _

* * *

Lena finds herself running through a dark hallway, the walls closing in on her, the lights blinking out as she passes them, constantly being chased by the darkness. No, not the darkness, but something in the darkness. She doesn’t know how she got here; it feels like she’s always been running through this hallway.

Tracer’s legs burn, her chest heaves, but what truly scares her is that her chronal accelerator is flickering. It hasn’t crapped out on her yet, but it looks too much like a light bulb that’s about to snap off for her liking. If whatever is chasing doesn’t catch her first, she’s doomed to be lost in time and space forever. She’d prefer neither of these options, but until she finds a way out of this hall, she doesn’t have much of a choice.

That’s when she sees it, in the distance, an end to the hallway, a door. She speeds up despite the protest from her legs and practically smashes into the door in no time flat. Lena breathes a sigh of relief and goes for the doorknob.

It’s stuck.

“No. No no  _ no no no! _ ” cries the Pilot, as she tries desperately to open up her only means of escape. “Just… Open up...”

But the door doesn’t budge. Tracer turns around and puts her back to the door, facing the menacing darkness as it creeps towards her. She doesn’t have her pulse pistols, she doesn’t even remember losing them, but she won’t go down without a fight.

That’s when she hears chirps. She isn’t quite sure she’s not just going crazy, but then there’s another one. The chirps steadily get closer before she sees it. A small swallow with brilliant blue feathers flying towards her and lands delicately on her shoulder.

The little bird looks at her, and she looks back before it cocks its head to the side and gives her a couple of inquisitorial chirps. Lena’s not sure how, but her heart settles down, and her breathing grows steadier, less ragged. The bird then begins pecking lightly at her nose.

It doesn’t hurt, it actually almost tickles, but she gives the little bird a light-hearted shoo anyways. 

“Alright ya little bugger,” says Lena through a smile, her thoughts of the encroaching darkness wiped completely from her mind. “That’s enough!”

* * *

Lena woke up with a start, lightly swiping at her nose. The room she was in was dark, the only light seeping in through the cracks below the door and around the blinds of the room’s only window and from a set of machines against the wall. A fan softly turned above her.

What was she doing here? Sitting in this chair, leaning over this bed? 

A finger booped her nose again. It wasn’t a typical finger, though, it felt metallic, cold, almost detached.  _ Oh right. _

The bedside lamp turned on, and McCree was there, a soft smile on his lips, his new hand inches away from her face ready to poke her nose again.

“Why, good morning there, sleepyhead,” said the Cowboy, his smile growing a degree more mischievous. “You were making some funny noises; I figured I’d try and wake you up.”

The look on her face must’ve been particularly bad because he started laughing.

“Why you little git!” cried Lena, beginning to laugh herself. “How long have you just been staring at me in the dark ya creep?!”

“I’m not sure,” said McCree. “But I apparently have a robot arm now, so I feel like I get some leniency.”

Her smile falters a bit as reality starts encroaching in on them again, their brief respite apparently over. McCree senses her thoughts and holds out his hand in an invitation for her to climb into the hospital bed with him.

She accepts, lightly crawling up next to him and resting her head on his shoulder.

“Gently now, I feel like my whole body is just one huge bruise,” said McCree, wincing a little but holding her tightly all the same.

The two lay there for a moment as McCree holds his new hand out in front of him, twisting and turning it, gripping thin air and ticking off fingers.

“How does it feel?” asks Lena, running her own hand up his arm and grabbing hold of the hand. The gentleness surprises her a little.

“Not too bad,” replies McCree, bringing her hand to his face, she readily scratches at his beard. “Good response, the touch feedback is spot on. Angela and Winston really outdid themselves with this one.”

“You’re not upset about losing the arm at all?” Lena asks tentatively, almost unwilling to broach the subject.

McCree looks back at his hand contemplatively, his lips pursed and brow furrowed in thought, before booping her nose one more time.

“Nah, as long as I can poke your nose, I feel like I’ll be fine,” McCree says with a smile that warms her heart.

Well, if that’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for her. She lays her head back on the Cowboy’s shoulder as he runs his hand through her hair softly. The darkness might have gotten close, but it had been halted, and as long as her Cowboy could boop her nose, it wasn’t going to get any closer.


End file.
